ghtness in his
chest. Why was it that every one seemed to disbelieve him? Why was it
that even this mysterious girl, whom he had never seen before in his
life, politely called him a liar when he insisted that he had killed
John Barkley? Was the fact of murder necessarily branded in one's face?
If so, he had never observed it. Some of the hardest criminals he had
brought in from the down-river country were likable-looking men. There
was Horrigan, for instance, who for seven long weeks kept him in good
humor with his drollery, though he was bringing him in to be hanged.
And there were McTab, and le Bete Noir--the Black Beast--a lovable
vagabond in spite of his record, and Le Beau, the gentlemanly robber of
the wilderness mail, and half a dozen others he could recall without
any effort at all. No one called them liars when, like real men, they
confessed their crimes when they saw their game was up. To a man they
had given up the ghost with their boots on, and Kent respected their
memory because of it. And he was dying--and even this stranger girl
called him a liar? And no case had ever been more complete than his
own. He had gone mercilessly into the condemning detail of it all. It
was down in black and white. He had signed it. And still he was
disbelieved. It was funny, deuced funny, thought Kent.

Until young Mercer opened the door and came in with his late breakfast,
he had forgotten that he had really been hungry when he awakened with
Cardigan's stethoscope at his chest. Mercer had amused him from the
first. The pink-faced young Englishman, fresh from the old country,
could not conceal in his face and attitude the fact that he was walking
in the presence of the gallows whenever he entered the room. He was, as
he had confided in Cardigan, "beastly hit up" over the thing. To feed
and wash a man who would undoubtedly die, but who would be hanged by
the neck until he was dead if he lived, filled him with peculiar and at
times conspicuous emotions. It was like attending to a living corpse,
if such a thing could be conceived. And Mercer had conceived it. Kent
had come to regard him as more or less of a barometer giving away
Cardigan's secrets. He had not told Cardigan, but had kept the
discovery for his own amusement.

This morning Mercer's face was less pink, and his pale eyes were paler,
Kent thought. Also he started to sprinkle sugar on his eggs in place of
salt.

Kent laughed and stopped his hand. "You may sugar my eg